The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life

Listen to The Top if you want to hear from the worlds TOP entrepreneurs on how much they sold last month, how they are selling it, and what they are selling - 7 days a week in 20 minute interviews!
The Top is FOR YOU IF you are:
A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4)
STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7)
An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1)
The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14).
Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.
Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at NathanLatka.com/TheTop

Lauren Sullivan. She’s the co-founder of Flightfox, a site which Nathan recently used to book multi-country travel. Flightfox helped him understand the best way to leverage his points from his Chase Credit Card for travel purposes. Flightfox helps you search flights, manage your trip, and leverage your loyalty points, to help ease your trip planning experience and it is growing fast.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Good to Great

What CEO do you follow? –John Mackey

Favorite online tool? —PocketSmith

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes, currently

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Lauren wished she had stopped working for someone else and started building her own company earlier

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:25 – Nathan introduces Lauren to the show

02:02 – Flightfox is an online and real-time platform that manages travel for individuals, companies and organizations

02:15 – Flightfox’s revenue model is to chargeper trip and they make money from commission

02:32 – Flightfox’s expert will help match and plan a trip and they will authorize the credit cardyouuse

03:33 – Flightfox books for companies, too

03:50 – The more complex the trip, the more expensive it is

05:10 – If Flightfox can’t find you a trip, they won’t charge you

05:34 – Flightfox was launched in 2012

05:45 – Flightfox was originally launched as a contestbased, cloud source system

06:10 – There were a small number of themajority winning the contest

06:21 – The model was switched to a one-on-one

07:04 – The experts are contactors

07:15 – The experts get a fee per trip

07:40 – Most of them are full-time

07:50 – Flights metrics

08:03 – Flightfox is focused on companies and organizations

08:14 – CAC is a bit high

09:20 – There are at least 50 companies who have booked with Flightfox

09:35 – 5-10 companies are booking at least 30 trips per month

09:50 – Companies usually have 80 people

10:20 – In 2012, Flightfox has raised $850K

10:50 – Four Team members

11:50 – Flightfox has pivoted a couple of times already

13:19 – Lauren has been through alot with her company thus far, and has chosen to carry on

14:14 – 2016 total revenue

14:40 – Flightfox is close to breaking even

14:53 – Average MRR

15:11 – Raising another round will depend on the things that will happen in the future

17:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Changing your business model isn’t easy – but, it’s very normal to have to do so.

Going through the most difficult times will test not just your patience, but your ability to make the best decisions.

Aseem Badshah. He’s the founder and CEO of the company called Socedo. Before that, he built his own full-service marketing agency called Uptown Treehouse that leveraged social media and digital channels to reach current and potential customers. He’s upgraded and improved that initial business model with his current company, Socedo.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Crushing the Cashman

What CEO do you follow? –

Favorite online tool? —

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Aseem wished that he would have prioritized building relationships

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:15 – Nathan introduces Aseem to the show

01:50 – Aseem noticedthattherewasso much data on prospects for B2B marketers in an agency

02:07 – Socedo’s goal

02:13 – Lead generation is what Socedousesto get more customers

02:45 – Socedo provides behavioral data

02:56 – Socedo makes money from their software license

03:03 – Clients sign-up from 6 months to 1 year of license usage

03:11 – Average pay the company gives to Socedo monthly

03:25 – Socedo started in 2013

03:37 – In social media marketing, everything was setup for B2C marketers

04:25 – Social media is like a big CRM so Aseem leveraged it in a way to help B2B marketers

04:45 – There are 200 paying customers

04:50 – Socedo hasraised $1.5M

05:00 – Socedo’s revenue hastripledin 2016

05:10 – Average contract price

05:25 – Socedo started with SMB

05:50 – 2016 total revenue

06:05 – Socedo has 25 people

06:20 – 2017 goal

06:30 – Aseem is targeting 2x for 2017

06:41 – Aseem wants to focus on their current customers

07:17 – “It’s not necessarily about growth at all costs;we want to focus on the fundamentals,focus on the relationship with customers”

Calvin Correli. He’s the CEO of a holistically focused, multi-million dollar, online, all-in-one solution driven software company called Simplero. This company exists to reduce the stress associated with figuring out software systems and how to join them together. He’s passionate about helping online business owners do exactly what brings them the most life.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –There Is Nothing Wrong With You

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —FastMail

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not every night

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Invest in getting to know yourself, and who you are, and how you’re different”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:20 – Nathan introduces Calvin to the show

02:49 – Simplero is a tool thathelpspeople sell online

03:20 – Simplero is a SaaS business model

03:30 – Simplero was launched in 2009

03:39 – Calvin started to charge people in 2010

03:50 – Number of current paying customers is 700

04:02 – One of Simplero’s customers is Robin Green, who is an acupuncturist in California

04:25 – Robin decided to teach acupuncture online

04:42 – Robinmadearound $60K on her first program

05:10 – Simplero automates everything that can be automated

05:27 – Average customer pay per month

05:31 – Simplero charges monthly and takes a percentage of the revenue

05:51 – Simplero’s main revenue stream

06:25 – 10% is from the revenue fee and 90% from the SaaS model

07:15 – Average MRR

07:21 – Average ARR per customer

07:50 – Average customer retention

08:25 – Calvin shares how he got their customer LTV

08:58 – Calvin is based in New York, but he has team members in Denmark and on theWestCoast

09:56 – Most of the people in the business started 6 months ago

10:20 – Simplero is self-funded

11:25 – Calvin is happywith howhis company is doing at the moment

11:40 – Calvin wants to show the worldadifferent way to live

12:01 – Calvin’s big dream is to be a presidential adviserforUSA

13:00 – How do we measure happiness?

13:07 – Calvin is not a metrics guy

13:19 – There’s a sweet spot for every person where they are happy and work doesn’t feel like work

14:00 – How do we know if people are really happy?

15:10 – Productivity gainsdo notdirectly correlate to happiness gains

15:55 - The source of happiness vs. the thing you do for othersor withothers

17:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

There’s a feeling of contentment you can find in helping others.

Invest in yourself, first.

There’s a sweet spot for every person where they are happy and work doesn’t feel like work.

Russ Heddleston. He’s the CEO and co-founder of DocSend. Previously, he was a product manager for Facebook. He arrived at the B2B acquisition of the product Pursuit.com. Russ also had roles in Dropbox, Greystripe and Trulia. He received a BS in Computer Engineering and MS Computer Science at Stanford along with an MBA from Harvard.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Good to Great

What CEO do you follow? –Keith Krach

Favorite online tool? —GmailandSlack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do things well and be patient with them—and then, they will turn out well later”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:33 – Nathan introduces Russ to the show

02:03 – Pursuit was a human resources to management referral program for employees

Pietari Suvanto, cofounder of the company, Vainu. Vainu was founded recently and is a tool that defines piles of data from the web and turns into fact check and actionable company information. His vision is to understand more organizations around the world more than anybody else and his company currently has about a thousand customers in Europe, including FedEx and Santander Innoventures.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –How to Win Friends and Influence People

What CEO do you follow? –Mike Bloomberg

Favorite online tool? —Zoom

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Be a bit more braver”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:12 – Nathan introduces Pietari to the show

01:50 – Vainu is a SaaS business model

02:40 – Pietari shares a company that is searchable in Vainu

03:06 –Salesforcehas a lot of organizations around the globe

03:50 – The uses of companies’ data in Vainu

04:12 – Vainu gives the company’s in-depth data

04:30 – Salespeople are the ones who uses Vainu

04:49 – Vainu’s revenue stream is from the subscription per seat

05:05 – Average customer pay per month is€400

05:21 – Vainu was launched in 2014

05:33 – Vainu hasn’t raised capital

05:37 – Vainu is based in Hilsinki, Finland, Amsterdam, and New York

06:00 – Number of paying customers is 1000

06:30 – ARR in 2016 €4.5M

06:55 – MRR goal in 2017

07:20 – Vainu is finding their customers through their software

08:07 – Pietari shares how they find the companies

08:50 – Vainu can check thecompany's’ data in preview

09:30 – The number of salespeople in Vainu’s team

09:55 – Gross customer churn is 1%

10:05 – CAC

10:24 – Assumed LTV per customer

10:40 – €20K-30K

11:04 – Pietari ishopingto raise capital

11:36 – Pietari would likely to raise €5-10M

12:30 – Pietari shares how they are different from their competitors

13:20 – Vainu hasn’t bought any API access to any data providers

13:30 – Everything in their system is owned by them

13:50 – The best asset of Vainu

14:50 – Pietari shares how they access the revenue data

15:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Be the BEST in your market, having an asset that will set you apart from your competitors.

Drew Canole. He’s a nutrition specialist, transformation specialist, and national spokesperson for the benefits of juicing vegetables for health and vitality. He is the founder of Fitlife.TV where he shares educational, inspirational, and entertaining videos and articles about health, fitness, healing, and longevity. More recently, his company, Organifi, is getting directly into the green juicing space with a physical product.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Think and Grow Rich

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? —Google Calendar

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To stay fricking focused on one thing”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:30 – Nathan introduces Drew to the show

02:25 –Organifiis sourced from the best farms for their organic ingredients

02:34 – The ingredients are high quality, organic, non-GMO, soy free, and vegan

02:43 – Drew did clinical studies on their product and has sold over a quarter million bottles

03:20 – Drew started getting his audience from Youtube and Facebook, 6 years ago

03:33 – “Influence marketing has been our focus for the past 3 years”

03:48 – Drew has one of the largest, green juice followings online

03:56 – Drew started working on a their own concoction by looking at the gap in the green juice market

04:35 – The green juice that is available in the market is not good for the brain and body

Andrew Myers. He grew up in Denver, Colorado and recently left Yale before the start of his senior year to pursue Ripple Recruiting, full-time. He now serves as a CEO in a fast growing, 12-person startup.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Anna Karenina

What CEO do you follow? –Kevin RyanandReid Hoffman

Favorite online tool? —PersistIQandSlack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Go for it”

Aditya Tulsian. He launched and led multiple small business focused software service and mobile offerings at Intuit India. He’s also a management consultant at Diamond Consultant which is now PWC. He’s a product manager. He’s got an MBA and he’s doing very big things especially in the SMB SaaS space.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Good to Great

What CEO do you follow? –Brad Smith

Favorite online tool? —Slack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Adi just wished that he could have taken the chance earlier

Rode Luhaäär. He’s an enthusiast and entrepreneur who has years of experience as an e-marketer and digital strategist. During his career in the digital field, he’s been overseeing execution and delivery of activities such as digital concept, e-business concepts, creative solutions design, software development, SEO, social media marketing, and global solutions. Over the last few years, he’s been an active member of a startup community and currently manages a large software company called, Paytailor.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book?—Lean Startup

What CEO do you follow?— n/a

Favorite online tool? — n/a

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Think faster”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:30 – Nathan introduces Rode to the show

03:10 – Paytailor is a smart payment solutionallowingmerchants to get paid the way they want

03:26 – Paytailor gives merchants an app and the users a card wallet

03:45 – Paytailor is a SaaS company

03:50 – Paytailor charges €10 monthly

04:05 – Paytailor’s revenue comes from the monthly fee

04:10 – Average number of customers is 40

04:20 – MRR

04:28 – Paytailor has raised €70K in a convertible note

04:45 – Paytailor was launched in 2015

04:55 – Paytailor started as a side project

05:15 – Team size

05:24 – Paytailor’s development is based in Estonia

05:38 – Why did you give up good pay in the digital field to start Paytailor?

Laurence Girard. He’s the CEO and founder of Fruit Street. He was a pre-med student at Harvard University Extension School for three years before he decided to pursue Fruit Street full-time and move to San Francisco. In high school, he played soccer for the New York Red Bulls Academy as a goalkeeper, which sparked his initial interest in health. Later, he decided to pursue a career focused on social impact and spent a year volunteering in an emergency room unit in Huntington Hospital, Long Island. He’s now exclusively focused in Fruit Street.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Science of Growth

What CEO do you follow? –Milton Chen

Favorite online tool? —eShares

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 5 out of 7 days

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Laurence would tell himself to put significant emphasis on the team when you arestartinga company

Luke Stronach. He’s spent the last few years raising money for his farmland fund. He’s got one single family office as an investor. He’s currently 44, he’s taught finance, and most of his background is in low-income housing. He’s really looking forward to coming to the show and he’s a listener.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Fish That Ate the Whale

What CEO do you follow? –Stewart and Lynda Resnick

Favorite online tool? —Duolingo

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – If you want to have a meaningful life, you should be doing meaningful things

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:20 – Nathan introduces Luke to the show

01:46 – Luke shares what he likes about The Top

02:04 – Luke has raised less than $10M for his farmland fund

02:15 – Luke is currentlyin the process of moving to Atlanta

02:20 – Luke is about to close his first farm

02:28 – Luke’s second orchard is under contract

02:34 – Luke wants to develop a 100acre orchard in Georgia

03:06 – Luke mentions what farmland investors are looking for in a farmland

03:24 – Luke’s first orchard hadgood irrigation

03:43 – It has 600 acres and was almost $2M

04:41 – 40% of North America’s farmland is leased to farmers

04:50 – Investors buy the farmland, lease to farmerswhorent per acre or have a revenue share agreement

05:35 – Many farmers are cash flow farmers

06:00 – There are differences across different crops

06:45 – Luke shares the farmer’s perspective on crops

07:01 – Average rent per acre

07:40 – The farmersgrowingrice and corn are renting at $250 per acre

08:00 – Luke’s return on his $2M investment

08:50 – The return will always depend on the yield which varies

09:06 – People look at farmland investing as a way to lock value into the land

09:12 – There are people who are after the yield and there are those who are not

10:05 – Luke shares what happened in 2007-2009

10:10 – S&P 500 lost 50% of its value

10:46 – Historically, farmland has done well with inflation

11:00 – Luke’s opinionregardinginflation

11:14 – The returns in farmland can be attractive

11:57 – Farmland is not as big as commercial property

12:03 – Farmland investment is a hard space

13:10 – It is a persistence game

13:40 – Luke is currentlyinAlabama

14:00 – Nathan wants to study Luke’s field and work with Luke

17:17 – Thereareso many things to do in Georgia and Luke willkeepNathan busy

Sean Moss-Pultz. He’s the CEO and founder of BitMark, the property system for the digital environment. It enables an individual to claim ownership of personal data and digital assets akin to how land registrars track land titles or patent offices track patents.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –High Output Management

What CEO do you follow? –Andy GroveandYvon Chouinard

Favorite online tool? —Slack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Luck plays a big role and you just can’t quit”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:28 – Nathan introduces Sean to the show

01:53 – Anybody that has data coming out ofFitbitcan establish ownershipoverthat data and can list it for sale or protect it

02:11 –BitMark’sbusiness model is that they earn a small commission

02:31 – Fitbit’s data is in your phone

03:08 – We don’t have property rights on our data

03:40 – Download BitMark’s software to sell your data or protect it

03:58 – BitMark is currently on beta mode and only desktop software

04:09 – BitMark works withIFTTT

04:56 – BitMark’s software can generate a link for your data that you can share

Phil Town. He’s a two-time New York Times’ best-selling author, hedge fund manager, and founder of Rule One Investing. He’s teaching individuals how to take control of their financial futures so they don’t have to find a fund manager or financial advisors.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Intelligent Investor

What CEO do you follow? –Warren Buffett

Favorite online tool? —Evernote

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? –That USA will put us in a war and itwill suck

Neil DeSena. He’s one of the founders of SenaHill Partners. He was previously at Goldman Sachs, where he really led the creation of a pioneering and institutional training technologies system which has been used worldwide for over 20 years. He was the Managing Director, Global Head of REDI Products at Goldman Sachs from 2000 - 2006. Neil’s leadership helped build a leading, global, multi-asset training system that has expanded data centers and global networking through Europe and Asia.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –n/a

What CEO do you follow? –Duncan Niederauer

Favorite online tool? —Salesforce

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Pay a little more attention to the details”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:20 – Nathan introduces Neil to the show

02:20 – Neil shares how their company is finding businesses to invest in

02:40 – Neil and his partners are all entrepreneurs and have experience runningbusinesses

02:54 – Neil shares why they focus onFinTech

04:25 – Average total transaction volume that they’vehadin 2016

04:54 – Fintech in 2017

05:40 – Distributive ledger of concept is ready for primetime

06:00 –Symbiontis well positioned in the distributive ledger of concept space

06:24 –Symbiontwill be at the point of formation for all other companies

06:34 – Companies can now be registered digitally

06:46 –Symbiont’s founder,Mark Smith,wasNeil’s first advisor

06:50 – Mark also founded LavaEffects

07:00 – Mark teamed up with the most successful open source company

07:45 – Neil’s predictionof how people will respond toWall Streetandtheir new administration

08:08 – “I’m not quite sure how things are going to work out”

08:14 – Banks have to adjust to it

08:55 – Neildiscussesthe economy of the distributive ledger

09:45 – The company that Neil thinks is well positioned to take advantage of the no churn economy in the FinTech sector

10:10 – Neil is also interested in the retirement sector

10:30 – There is still no new technology to work around retirement money

10:50 – Neil hasseen possible companies, but not one from their portfolio

11:00 – Fundamentals being displaced byquantimentals

12:10 – Neil’s opinionregardingWealth Frontwinning over on the money the people currently have onVanguard

13:20 – There are companies who are trying to bridge the gap between theBabyBoomers andGenerationY

13:50 – SenaHill hasn’tmade an investment yet, on an insurance company

14:40 – SenaHill’s focus in 2017

14:50 – “We try to find companies that we can invest in and help and be with them for the life”

15:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Pay attention to the details.

Wall Street can be unpredictable because of the new administration – regardless, banks will have to adjust.

There are companies who are trying to bridge the gap between the Baby Boomers and Generation Y.

Bryn Jones. He’s the co-founder and CEO of GrowSumo. GrowSumo graduated from Y Combinator in the summer of 2015, and they’re building a marketplace for influencer programs. Prior to building companies, Bryn was also a member of a swim team.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Hard Thing About Hard Things

What CEO do you follow? –

Favorite online tool? —Slack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To just go for it”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:15 – Nathan introduces Bryn to the show

01:41 – Nathan found Bryn throughProduct Hunt

02:42 – There are large enterprise clients who camefromGrowSumo

02:53 – GrowSumo builds a marketplace for influencer programs

03:10 – GrowSumo charges a one-time annual fee

03:14 – GrowSumo takes a percentageofevery dollar the influencer earns from the brand

03:22 – GrowSumo is an affiliate program on top of an affiliate program

03:33 – An influencer can be anyone

04:19 – GrowSumo has a month over month fee which is $300 a month

04:48 – It is for a new startup with no affiliate program

04:56 – It lets you go in and manage the program yourself

05:16 – For an enterprise account, GrowSumo automates the entire program

05:23 – GrowSumo helps you identify the influencers

05:32 – The enterprise account:$10K annually

05:36 – GrowSumo takes 10% from all payouts to influencers

06:20 – “You have a lot of customers today that are influencers and you just don’t know where to find them”

07:03 – Bryn shares how they identify the influencers

07:43 – GrowSumo doesn’t have the ability to qualify an influencer based on the list size they have

08:33 – GrowSumo was launched in August 2015

09:06 – GrowSumo has a lot of traction

09:20 – Percentage of customers that GrowSumo is currently working with

Tatu Koistinen, the CEO of Bonusway. His background is in loyalty and digital marketing and he has many growth stories to share. He’s now building the most social e-commerce loyalty platform on earth. He’s currently focused on building the leadership and culture of the business and he’s also an Ironman triathlete.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Halo Effect

What CEO do you follow? –n/a

Favorite online tool? —Asana

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Trust yourself, act quicker, and be brave

K.C. Kanaan. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Envoy America – a Scottsdale, Arizona based national company that operates a wide-sharing platform and mobile application that matches seniors and patients that can’t drive or don’t want to drive themselves with driver companions. K.C. is a senior executive with more than 30 years of general management, operational sales and marketing experience. He’s known both for his command of the big picture and ability to execute on short-term strategies. He has inspired teams to strive for and achieve the impossible.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

What CEO do you follow? –Rafe Furst

Favorite online tool? —TrelloandSlack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – K.C wished that he had known how to work more effectively with people

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces K.C to the show

02:33 – Envoy America provides service to seniors and patients that cannot, shouldnot, and wouldchoose not todrive

02:45 – Envoy America makes moneyonthe time spent delivering the service based on hourly rate

03:05 – Envoy America is currently in Phoenix and will expand inTucson, Arizona

Lisa Tamayo. She’s the CEO of Scollar, an open platform, multi-functional, smart collar for pets. She has over 25 years of experience in entrepreneurship and financial and strategic planning. She’s the co-founder of Green Building Studio which was acquired by Autodesk in 2008. She’s also the chairman of SoCo Nexus, an incubator accelerator in Northern California.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Pitch Anything

What CEO do you follow? –Ben Horowitz

Favorite online tool? —Evernote

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Trust Yourself”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:30 – Nathan introduces Lisa to the show

02:13 – Scollar is a smart collar

03:10 – The first product,Scollar Mini, was designed exclusively for the under-searched cats and small dogs market

03:29 – Scollar is currently on pre-order and has launched aKickstartercampaign

03:52 – Scollar is likeFitbitfor animals

04:10 – TheFitbit engineering team has partnered with Scollar Mini

04:26 – Scollar Mini is currently at $99 for pre-order and will retail at $149

04:35 – The pre-order started in mid-October

04:50 – Scollar is starting to build their following

05:15 – Scollar has negotiated with a bank to get credit

05:23 – Lisa and her partner have self-funded a part of it

06:00 – Lisa and her husband are the first foundersof Green Building Studio

06:18 –Autodeskhas bought all the assets of Green Building Studio

06:35 – Green Building Studio was Autodesk’smarket partner for a long time

07:28 – Lisa has almost $600k in Scollar

07:44 – Lisa discusses the spending

08:07 – Finding someone in hardware to help build the product are typically employed elsewhere

08:30 – It took Lisa a while to find the right team to work together

09:08 – Most funding went to the trial and error of the product

09:25 – Team size is almost 40

10:00 – Lisa shares the factorsinvolved in asking for a loan

11:10 – It took the bank months to agree with Lisa and grant her the loan

11:40 –Working Solutionsgave them the loan

12:10 –Working Solutionsis agreatoption for quick capital

13:00 – The cost of making Scollar

13:19 – Cost per unit

13:43 – Possible wholesale price

14:50 – They mightusethe wholesale price in 2018

16:02 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Hardware is a far different process to create than software—it may take time to find and build the right team.

There are many options for gaining capital – choose the one that suits your company best.

Mikus Opelts. He’s the CEO at Giraffe360. He started this company 7 years ago, in February of 2010, when he got involved with Giraffe Visual which provides interactive visualization services. It has now developed into something so much more.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –How Google Works

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? —Trello

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? –“Everything I’m thinking about and planning for will take three times of the time than what I was hoping for”

Anders Fredriksson. He’s a Swedish, serial entrepreneur who recently moved to San Francisco to build his sales technology startup, ProLeads. He’s an engineer with a business mind and currently holds both CEO and CTO titles. Previously, he built and scaled ArrivalGuides.com as the founding CTO. Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of Tablefinder.com, which he sold. He studied computer engineering and management at Chalmers University of Technology, but dropped out before getting his degree when he got funding for his first startup, Table Finder. Additionally, in 2007, Internet World named him the most prominent entrepreneur in Sweden.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Lean Startup

What CEO do you follow? –Marc Benioff

Favorite online tool? —Google Inbox

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? –“I really wished I knew how easy itisto start a business,but also I wish I didn’t know how hard it was”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:20 – Nathan introduces Anders to the show

03:25 – Anders got $75K when he started Table Finder

03:50 –ProLeadsis a platform that aggregates service data to optimize workflow

04:07 – ProLeads is a SaaS model with annual subscriptions

04:40 – Average customer pay per month is around $75

05:20 – ProLeads was launched in the USA, in 2014

05:40 – Anders was in 500Startups,Batch 12

05:43 – Anders was turned down 4 times

05:58 – What Anders said to convince 500 startups to accept them

06:10 – ProLeads was doing $5K per month when they were just starting

06:53 – There were 2 co-founders and now they have 3

07:20 – Average MRR

07:50 – The amount ProLeadsreceivesfrom 500 startups

08:08 – ProLeads also raised funds during the program

08:20 – ProLeads totaled $500K from theirfundraising

09:15 – Zesty is a longtime customer of ProLeads

09:38 – Zesty has 50-70 seats in ProLeads

10:45 – ProLeads’ lowest pricing is $300 per month

10:55 – ProLeads’ focus is mid-sized companies

11:14 – 2017 MRR goal

12:10 – Gross customer churn per month

12:49 – ProLeadswasgrowing their MRR

12:56 – ProLeads had a problem during close demo day churn

13:35 – ProLeads had monthly contracts

13:51 – Average monthly churn is quite low

14:22 – Team size

14:36 – CAC

14:48 – No paid marketing

15:20 – The tools ProLeads uses:

15:30 –Clearbit,Full Contact,andDiscoverOrg

15:41 – DiscoverOrg was onThe Top: Episode 512

17:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

BELIEVE in your own product—this will make it easier to convince other people to believe in it as well.

Problems arise at the start of any business, learn from it and move on.

Starting a business has both its hard and easy moments; either way, it’s worth the jump.

Devon Wijesinghe. He’s the founder and CEO of InsightPool. He co-founded the business in 2012; and, within a short time led the company from 2 to 60 employees. He is currently revolutionizing marketeering and sales across many social platforms.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Hard Thing About Hard Things

What CEO do you follow? –Travis Kalanick

Favorite online tool? —Pardot

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Try and learn to concentrate on financial metrics and understand finance deeply

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:27 – Nathan introduces Devin to the show

01:53 -InsightPoolfocuses on the sector of influencer marketing

02:03 – “A brand needs to have an army of people syndicating their content with their own voices”

02:15 - Insight Cool finds influencers for brands that they can work with

02:35 –InsightPool’s pricing model

03:10 – Average customer pay per month is $3K

03:33 – What is included in $3K

03:53 – Devin was the solo founder

04:00 – Devin sold a previous company for 9-figures in early 2012

04:50 – “Social became prevalent as the newest data set”

05:11 – Devin seeded a business idea for $250K

05:33 – Devin has a formalized angel group

05:41 – Devin is an advisor and investor

05:58 –David Cummingsis Devin’sfriend

06:17 – David and Devin’s companies are the first ones in ATV lean and tech village

06:48 – Hecurrently has 60 peopleonthe team

07:21 –InsightPoolis currently serving over a hundred enterprises

07:50 – MRR

08:23 –InsightPoolhas a sales team

08:49 – CAC LTV

10:00 – Average spending on CAC

10:25 – Gross churn

11:00 – Net revenue churn

11:53 –InsightPooldid a series A round and got an investment of $8M

12:35 –InsightPooldid a debt round last year

12:50 – The amountInsightPoolis burning per month

14:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

A brand needs to have an army of people syndicating their content with their own voices.

Go with what you think you are made to do.

Learn how to make the metrics and finance dance – understand it deeply before taking that leap.

Nick Caruso. He’s the CEO and founder of Illumineto. He’s the VP of Sales in Eastern US & Canada with Notable Solutions and he was there for 6 years. Before that, he was at Kofax as a federal sales manager and he also served the country in the Marine Corps as a Captain.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Built to Last

What CEO do you follow? –Drew Houston

Favorite online tool? —API.ai

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Nick wished he knew that starting a companywasnot as hard as he thought it would be andwishedhe’d started earlier

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:06 – Nathan introduces Nick to the show

01:45 – Illumineto is a SaaS company and they charge monthly

02:00 – Nick has been in the technology field for 20 years and in sales for 15 years

02:15 – Nick wasn’t able to find a tool to help him close more deals

02:34 – Illumineto focuses on the individual sales rep and not the whole company

02:58 – Illumineto has a lot of sales reps from Fortune 500 companies

03:14 – Illumineto has been running for 6 months now

03:48 – Illumineto currently has a thousand of sign ups or users that represent several hundreds of logos

04:25 – Illumineto was founded in mid2015

04:30 – Beta in 2016

04:50 – Nick has sunk in $700K before starting

05:00 – Illumineto had an Angel round

05:23 – Illumineto has 3 co-founders

05:32 – All of them had successful exits in different companies

05:55 – There are 5 Angel investors

06:15–Current team size is 4

06:50 – Average pay per user per month is $30

07:00 – Average MRR

08:00 – Nick won’t disclose the amount, but Illumineto is profitable

09:00 – Nathan explains why he asks for numbers

10:15 – Illumineto has more than 100 paying customers

10:30 – Gross customer churn

10:52 – 0% churn rate on paying customers

11:31 – Illumineto had paid advertising

12:07 – They had thousands of people coming in for the premium model

12:50 – Illumineto leverages their connections in LinkedIn to get their customers from IBM

13:11 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

It is possible for a startup to be profitable in as early as 6 months.

Leveraging your connections can help you engage with customers and increase sales.

Ken Marlin. He’s the founder and managing partner of Marlin and Associates – an award winning mergers and acquisition business focused on investment banking. They are headquartered in New York city with offices in San Francisco, Washington DC and Toronto. Ken is also the author of The Marine Corps Way to Win on Wall Street: 11 Key Plans From Battlefield to Boardroom which was published in September. From 1971-1981, Ken rose in rank becoming a Marine Captain and Infantry Commander. He’s applied his Marine Corps principles to leading successful businesses.

Steven Benson. The founder and CEO of Badger Maps – the number one sales app in the Apple app store which helps salespeople become more successful. Badger shows salespeople their customers and leads on the map and connects them with their calendar to build a daily route.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Tools of Titans

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Baremetrics

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Steven wished he had knownthathe’dlearn more workingforsmall companiesthanbig companies

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:27 – Nathan introduces Steven to the show

02:00 – Badger Maps helps salespeople with their jobs

02:37 - Badger Maps is a SaaS model

02:50 – Average customer pay per month is $35

02:58 – Badger Maps was founded in 2012

03:24 – Badger Maps has 3 co-founders

03:50 – Steven and the other co-founders didn’t really split the equity

04:00 – When splitting the equity, everyone gets a fair deal

04:44 – Steven shareswhat toconsider in splitting equity

05:58 – Badger Maps has an accelerator clause

06:44 – First year revenue is $70K

07:10 – Number of current customers is 4K

07:40 – Apple ranked Badger Maps as#1

08:50 – There are Fortune 500 companies who use Badger Maps

09:01 – The number of customers is both team and individual sales reps

09:16 – Gross monthly customer churn is 3.3%

09:37 – The customers are findingBadger Maps through word of mouth, SEO, and SMM

10:08 – The amount Badger Maps is willing to spend to acquire new customers

10:46 – Badger Maps spent $12K on paid marketing

11:00 – Average CAC

11:24 – Google is around $300

12:06 – In San Francisco, people are spending 100% of LTV on acquisition